The tension between Sofia and Belgrade is unacceptable for the EU, Bulgaria’s Premier Boyko Borissov said in Sarajevo atthesummit of the Southeast European Countries Cooperation Process. The European Union does not only mean EU funds, but also responsibility and foreseeability. The Balkan countries will not progress with this type of attitude. I will neither talk with President Aleksandar Vucic, nor with Serbia’s Premier Brnabic on the matter before I receive apologies from Serbia’s Foreign Minister Ivica Dacic, Boyko Borissov said. Premier Borissov contends that he did not offend Serbia when he gave an example of the difference between the national position of Spain on Kosovo and the position of the other EU countries. Minister Dacic already met Bulgaria’s Foreign Minister Zaharieva four times and has apologized, but he does not want to make it in public, Bulgaria’s Premier Borissov underlined. Serbia’s Premier Brnabic commented that the two countries will settle out the differences. 

Later Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Foreign Affairs Ekaterina Zaharieva met with her Serbian counterpart Ivica Dacic in the High Tatras in Slovakia, at an informal meeting of the foreign ministers of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe.

“Obviously there is a misinterpretation of Borissov’s words. I have been cooperating with Borissov for many years and I was surprised by the interpretation of his words by our media,” Ivica Dacic said as justification.